http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/07/conservative-politics-low-effort-thinking_n_1410448.html?ref=mostpopular

Conservatives and liberals don't seem to agree about much, and they might not agree about recent studies linking conservatism to low intelligence and "low-effort" thinking.

As The Huffington Post reported in February, a study published in the journal "Psychological Science" showed that children who score low on intelligence tests gravitate toward socially conservative political views in adulthood--perhaps because conservative ideologies stress "structure and order" that make it easier to understand a complicated world.

Here is the study: http://psp.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/03/16/0146167212439213.abstract?rss=1

"People endorse conservative ideology more when they have to give a first or fast response," the study's lead author, University of Arkansas psychologist Dr. Scott Eidelman, said in a written statement released by the university.

Does the finding suggest that conservatives are lazy thinkers?

"Not quite," Dr. Eidelman told The Huffington Post in an email. "Our research shows that low-effort thought promotes political conservatism, not that political conservatives use low-effort thinking."

For the study, a team of psychologists led by Dr. Eidelman asked people about their political viewpoints in a bar and in a laboratory setting.

Bar patrons were asked about social issues before blowing into a Breathalyzer. As it turned out, the political viewpoints of patrons with high blood alcohol levels were more likely to be conservative than were those of patrons whose blood alcohol levels were low.

But it wasn't just the alcohol talking, according to the statement. When the researchers conducted similar interviews in the lab, they found that people who were asked to evaluate political ideas quickly or while distracted were more likely to express conservative viewpoints.

"Keeping people from thinking too much...or just asking them to deliberate or consider information in a cursory manner can impact people's political attitudes, and in a way that consistently promotes political conservatism," Dr. Eidelman said in the email.

The study was published online in the journal "Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin."

Honestly, this doesn't seem to come as a surprise. The conservative dogma in politics is palpable.

What do you think?

Heh, I could just be snarky here, but instead let me point out that I appreciate Eidelman's correction on the causal chain there. It's easy to misrepresent a study like that to say "Conservatives are lazy thinkers" or "are stupid" and be done there, when the issue is clearly more complex and rather one of correlations than of equivalence.

Five bucks says most people skim this and only take away "science says Republicans are dumb".

Remember that the rough conclusion of the experiments was that slow/simple people are more likely to be conservatively minded because it's easier to say "I like things this way because my Father/God/Teacher likes things this way" that to actually consider all the implications of any given political subject like left wing thinkers might think of.

Captcha: back to basics
weird, maybe the heart of conservancy?

Yeah, I wanna see the exact questions they used. With phrasing like "ultimately, private property should be abolished," there can be guidance one way or another depending on how in depth you consider the statement.

By this I mean, the way it is the natural response for most people is "but I like my private property," but if they flipped it around and said "ultimately, resources should used for society as a whole," it becomes more of the gut response to agree and say "oh, sharing is nice" without considering the implications.

Unless they have some grand control on their statements to make each choice unbaised (which is unlikely because they're probably biased) the measurement is a bit unnoteworthy.

LoFr3Eq:
Remember that the rough conclusion of the experiments was that slow/simple people are more likely to be conservatively minded because it's easier to say "I like things this way because my Father/God/Teacher likes things this way" ?

You know, I missed that part...

Ultratwinkie:

Honestly, this doesn't seem to come as a surprise. The conservative dogma in politics is palpable.

What do you think?

I think it is bullshit.

In fact, almost all claims about how "science can prove that people whom we don't agree with are stupid" are bullshit.

I am pretty sure that there are probably "scientific" methods to prove liberals all all stupid/brainless as well.

This is political propaganda, take it for what it is.

Hardcore_gamer:

Ultratwinkie:

Honestly, this doesn't seem to come as a surprise. The conservative dogma in politics is palpable.

What do you think?

I think it is bullshit.

In fact, almost all claims about how "science can prove that people whom we don't agree with are stupid" are bullshit.

I am pretty sure that there are probably "scientific" methods to prove liberals all all stupid/brainless as well.

This is political propaganda, take it for what it is.

Any basis for it being political propaganda?

I believe it was a year or two back on this forum that someone posted a link to a study that suggested that liberals actually were comparatively less intelligent (or something along those lines). So yeah, it has been done.

However, this study doesn't say anything of the kind. What it says is that we are more likely to resort to conservative thinking when our cognitive abilities are impaired or not fully utilized in one way or the other (through alcohol, workload etc.). It does not mean people with conservative ideals are stupid or anything of the sort. It means that when we are on asked to make political statements on the fly, we are more likely to resort to conservative thinking (notice how in Study 1 the self-reported liberal/conservative bias didn't reflect on how the participants answered). The study even suggests that the reason for this might be that
"the endorsement of political conservatism stems from needs to manage threat and uncertainty, and this approach could characterize the manipulations of load and time pressure as increasing participants' needs for cognitive closure." (Eidelman, S., Crandall, C.,
Goodman, J., & Blanchar, J., 2012).

There was also an interview a few years ago with Colin Firth where he said something along the lines of "Conservative people must have brains that work differently to mine for them to always be so wrong". Some people did a similar study and found out that Left wing/Right wing people do have slightly different brain make up. Don't quote me on this, I read it in a paper a while ago and I can't be bothered linking anything.

Vryyk:
Five bucks says most people skim this and only take away "science says Republicans are dumb".

So, now that the thread has a bunch of answers in it, who are you going to donate those 5 bucks to?
I recommend Doctors without Borders, but there are other good secular charities, too.

Many countries' portrayal of conservatism is a joke. Liberty driven economies almost seem to always have some form of political stage that inevitably manages to paint conservatism as some backwards caricature of itself. Really hope it doesn't manage to persuade the people to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
First thing one should do when looking at choosing between a liberal or conservative ideology, is look at how much debt their country is in. If it's terribad, then the country's conservative agenda isn't doing it's job. Time for reform. Choose sides later.

Makes sense. The conservative approach to the economy is often "let the market work" which is pretty much the smallest amount of effort you can put into thinking about the economy. And it is what I'd do if I had no information and no time to think of a better approach. The political left tends to be more ambitious about trying to plan something that is hopefully clever and effective.

Vryyk:
Five bucks says most people skim this and only take away "science says Republicans are dumb".

Considering that the first thing it says is

children who score low on intelligence tests gravitate toward socially conservative political views in adulthood--perhaps because conservative ideologies stress "structure and order" that make it easier to understand a complicated world.

which sounds like "low intelligence people embrace conservative thought because they don't want to spend time actually thinking about how things work", the connection is rather simple to make.

The rest of the study is sort of a no-shit-Sherlock scenario. People tend to be more conservative when they're being tossed questions with a time limit? Wow, I'm shocked. You're obviously more likely to respond conservatively when you're not sure of all the factors or are under pressure: people don't just go out on a limb until they know that it's a good idea.

So basically "conservatism" here is the easy answer to a question or the "common sense" (a term I hate as the common human has little sense) answer.

Well lets not write off all conservatives around the world off at once with this. Some "conservatives" and their parties think hard and in-depth about where their votes go... just not the proportion of the Reupblicans who would have voted Santorum for President...

It's just those parties who exploit democracies largest flaw... morons get a vote equal to those with a Doctorate in particle physics.

Ultratwinkie:
Honestly, this doesn't seem to come as a surprise. The conservative dogma in politics is palpable.

What do you think?

Hmmm... why izzit that, when there are ballot recounts, which, all things being equal, should result in nearly identical changes or not statistical change at all, tend instead to favor Democrats?

Apparantly, those low thinking Republicans know how to properly fill in and have counted, their ballots.

Gorfias:
Apparantly, those low thinking Republicans know how to properly fill in and have counted, their ballots.

Which, when you think about it, is the really important thing about voting: coloring between the lines.

Gorfias:

Ultratwinkie:
Honestly, this doesn't seem to come as a surprise. The conservative dogma in politics is palpable.

What do you think?

Hmmm... why izzit that, when there are ballot recounts, which, all things being equal, should result in nearly identical changes or not statistical change at all, tend instead to favor Democrats?

Apparantly, those low thinking Republicans know how to properly fill in and have counted, their ballots.

or the old conservative ladies in their church basements need to learn how to properly maintain their post. If the situation was people being too stupid to pick their right candidate, they'd need a reelection, not a recount. Unless you're suggesting the recounters are goddamn psychics, and can guess your intent from a garbage ballot, then it suggests the ones who fucked up enough to warrent a recount are the ones counting.

Now we should wonder why so many election officials are counting Democrat votes as Republican.

Blablahb:
... Around here you have three liberal parties who are left, centrist and right wing, and they each draw a range of academics and higher educated, and the right wing one a lot of entrepreneurs...

... All seems to point towards the more people can think and the more they know.

I think it would point to the more "credentialed" a people, the more they will subscribe to liberalism. There's a lot of over educated people out there that need BS corruption jobs to avoid real work.

A small, conservative government would mean people like Michelle Obama wouldn't be making nearly $400K a year in a BS job imposing institutionalized racism, bigotry and sexism. She might actually have to do something real like be a "low thinking" hot dog vendor.

I'd prefer a society governed by "low thinking" roofers, road pavers and dental hygene assistants" than high thinking bigots and exploiters.

Blablahb:

Gorfias:
I think it would point to the more "credentialed" a people, the more they will subscribe to liberalism. There's a lot of over educated people out there that need BS corruption jobs to avoid real work.

That's ussually what the lower classes cry when they see people getting paid twice as much for an academic level job that they can't comprehend, while they're doing simple menial jobs.

Simple? I don't know that I would trust a Michelle Obama to be able to run a hot dog cart.

I don't recall who wrote it, but, there seems to be some truth to the observation, "Scratch a Facist, expose a snob".

...
Key there: Republicans don't believe in social justice, so any sort of reward is always justified, so it becomes just a question of how much you can pull out of any company without it collapsing, because the board of directors sets their own salary, and in the US there's no regulations to stop them.

Key there: Leftists don't believe in social justice, so any sort of exploitation of taxpayers is always justified, so it becomes just a question of how much you can pull out of any country without it collapsing.

Gorfias:

A small, conservative government would mean people like Michelle Obama wouldn't be making nearly $400K a year in a BS job imposing institutionalized racism, bigotry and sexism. She might actually have to do something real like be a "low thinking" hot dog vendor.

Michelle Obama only earned about $250k, which was her salary at a private university.

Which is to say, she wasn't employed by the government doing a BS job even by the standards of people wanting small, conservative government.

But I take your message: educated people = bad, uneducated people = good.

Nikolaz72:

Hardcore_gamer:

Ultratwinkie:

Honestly, this doesn't seem to come as a surprise. The conservative dogma in politics is palpable.

What do you think?

I think it is bullshit.

In fact, almost all claims about how "science can prove that people whom we don't agree with are stupid" are bullshit.

I am pretty sure that there are probably "scientific" methods to prove liberals all all stupid/brainless as well.

This is political propaganda, take it for what it is.

And heres a person who neither read the journal or the article, but just commented after reading the title.

Uhmmmmmm.......

article:

As The Huffington Post reported in February, a study published in the journal "Psychological Science" showed that children who score low on intelligence tests gravitate toward socially conservative political views in adulthood--perhaps because conservative ideologies stress "structure and order" that make it easier to understand a complicated world.

Are you honestly telling me that the implications of this isn't suppose to be that stupid people are more likely to become conservatives?

The main issue is what is "conservative" thought?

If you define it or have a bias of it as being "low effort" thinking from the outset then don't be surprised at the results.

This story and others like it have been surfacing over the past few years. They are lame.

As someone who is a composite of left and right, then this must mean I am a low effort/high effort schizo anomaly and the researchers - of course - need ten years further funding and extra PhD students to dissect the issue.

These studies and these people are about as useful as a marzipan dildo.

Regards

Nightspore

DrVornoff:

Gorfias:
I don't recall who wrote it, but, there seems to be some truth to the observation, "Scratch a Facist, expose a snob".

Certainly applies to you well enough.

Hardcore_gamer:
Are you honestly telling me that the implications of this isn't suppose to be that stupid people are more likely to become conservatives?

I'm going to take it you didn't read this part:

"Not quite," Dr. Eidelman told The Huffington Post in an email. "Our research shows that low-effort thought promotes political conservatism, not that political conservatives use low-effort thinking."

Kind of an important distinction to make. Although you certainly seem to be intent on proving John Kenneth Galbraith right.

Nightspore:
As someone who is a composite of left and right, then this must mean I am a low effort/high effort schizo anomaly and the researchers - of course - need ten years further funding and extra PhD students to dissect the issue.

Another dude who didn't read the whole article.

But I did, though.

Didn't see any decent definitions of what conservative thought is that could be measured against.

Did YOU read the article?

Regards

Nightspore

Agema:

Gorfias:

A small, conservative government would mean people like Michelle Obama wouldn't be making nearly $400K a year in a BS job imposing institutionalized racism, bigotry and sexism. She might actually have to do something real like be a "low thinking" hot dog vendor.

Michelle Obama only earned about $250k, which was her salary at a private university.

Which is to say, she wasn't employed by the government doing a BS job even by the standards of people wanting small, conservative government.

But I take your message: educated people = bad, uneducated people = good.

Actually,

http://www.factcheck.org/2009/05/michelle-obamas-salary/

"Michelle Obama had been promoted in 2005 to vice president for community and external affairs after three years as the executive director for community affairs. It's true, as the e-mail (and National Review column) says, that she received a sizable pay raise that year. She went from earning $121,910 in 2004 as an executive director at the hospital to making $316,962 in 2005 as a vice president, according to tax returns filed by the Obamas for those years."

"Executive director for community affairs bad, hot dog vendor good."

DrVornoff:

Gorfias:
I don't recall who wrote it, but, there seems to be some truth to the observation, "Scratch a Facist, expose a snob".

Certainly applies to you well enough.

Really? I'm not the one that called hot dog cart vendors "simple". I actually did a business plan for a hot dog cart and it was much more complex than I think a spoiled leftist would think.

This will undoubtedly be ignored in favour of the simplistic political squabble but...

HuffPo clearly are running this to gratify their target readership by inviting the association of conservatism with stupidity, but article itself - and to be fair the meat of the HuffPo article - do knock this on the head.

The article's (which I just read) suggestion is that certain natural aspects of the ways humans think at a simple or basic level ("low-effort") draw them towards several conservative sorts of attitudes: acceptance of hierarchy, disposional rather than situational analysis of others, and so on. Therefore, the more you restrict cognitive processing power, the more the brain will try to come to a fast, efficient answer through these more basic thought processes. Which just happen to angle to conservative sort of values.

This does not therefore mean that conservatives are less capable or willing to think about stuff in detail or use "high-effort" thinking. Nor does it mean that "high-effort" thinking will necessarily lead to liberal views. And, importantly, that neither "low-effort" nor the fruits of "high-effort" thinking are necessarily going to equate to being correct.

An interesting hypothesis the study therefore suggests is that conservatism is therefore a more "natural" baseline of thought. Other ideologies are more likely to stem from "high-effort" thinking - amendments and detail to this baseline. Although obviously for many, "high-effort" thinking will still lead to conservatism.

Nightspore:

But I did, though.

Didn't see any decent definitions of what conservative thought is that could be measured against.

I guess then you missed:

"Conservative political ideology in Western democracies may be identified by several components, including an emphasis on personal responsibility, acceptance of hierarchy, and a preference for the status quo."

They then list three separate sections, each explaining the criteria with numerous citations to explain it. Reasonable enough.